Task management systems have become increasingly important in various industries to manage and maintain large amounts of data on single systems and increasingly growing networks. Task management systems are typically populated with tasks for managing and maintaining data on one or more systems. In healthcare example tasks include, for example, correcting errors and/or omission in data, scheduling an appointment, and updating a medical record. Tasks are stored in a task database, such as a task object table, of the task management system and can be compiled for presentation to a user into a work or task list. With the growing complexity of data and application systems, there is a need to present tasks to a user that may originate from various applications that are associated with a task management system.
In a healthcare integrated delivery network (IDN) various service providers (for example, several hospitals, labs, and/or other healthcare service providers) may be aggregated as one entity. A user, such as a data clerk, in the IDN may be required to work tasks that originate from and/or impact multiple systems at one or more of the service providers within the IDN. Prior art systems may require the user to access a different task management system for each service provider system. The user is faced with multiple interfaces and the inefficiency of jumping from one interface to another to accomplish their work. In another prior art system tasks may be generated within one task management system from events that are generated across an enterprise, such as an IDN. However, each task is created and stored in the task table of the task management system itself for display in a work list. It is desired to have a more flexible task management system for displaying tasks from application data tables other than the task table of the task management system. It is also desired to readily give the functionality of a given task management system in displaying and utilizing tasks to other applications and application tables that may not inherently have such functionality.
FIG. 1 illustrates a typical prior art task management system 100 for displaying a work list 105. Task objects 110 are created within task management system 100 and stored in a task database 115 of task management system 100. Task database 115 may be and/or include a task object table 120 having task objects 110 therein. A processor 125 uses task objects 110 to construct and display work list 105. Work list 105 includes work items 130, which are typically arranged in rows in the displayed work list 105. Each work item 130 represents a different task of task objects 110. Task objects 110 populating task database 115 may be manually or automatically created using task management system 100. Task objects 110 may be created due to an event originating within task management system 100 or from an associated application. In each case a separate one of task objects 110 is created for each data object that requires managing or maintaining. Thus, all task objects 110 used to generate work list 105 are in task database 115 of task management system 100 and there is a different task object 110 for each work item 130 in displayed work list 105.